Build Thread Want To Blow 5 Years And $50k On A Foxbody? Step By Step Instructions Inside!
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So yesterday was definitely quite a long day. Let me first say that Kris and the other guys at All Out are first class dudes. They know their stuff and were all great to work with. True car guys to the bone. Kris is also quite the magician once his fingers start plucking away at the laptop!
I got to the shop at 10am. We got the car off the trailer and started tinkering with the ignition to get the timing where it needed to be to fire up. The FAST distributor made that quite a challenge. The car had fuel and spark, but it just wouldn't fire. After about 2 hours, we were able to get the distributor cam sync where it needed to be to fire up. I was a bit of a nervous wreck when it wasn't starting. Had I not already started it myself in the garage when I had the stock computer, I would have thought that something internally was screwed up. When it did fire up, my heart found its way back out of my throat and the pigment came back to skin.
The guys got the car setup on the rollers and the fan and water pump were no longer working. They are controlled by a DCC controller. The 30A fuse to the controller was blown. It was an oversight on my part that when both the fan and water pump reach their max speed, they pull more than 30A of current collectively. We wired the fan directly to the batter via a high-current switch and just toggled it manually. I'm going to re-think how I have the controller wired to allow me to use a larger fuse safely.
Once that was taken care of, it was time to get the car tuned.
Kris pecked away at the mouse pad on the laptop for a while until he got where it needed to be to make a first pull. 385hp @ 4550 and 455ft-lb torque @ 4200. That was at 5 lbs of boost. I could see that there was loads of potential in those numbers.
I was time for lunch, so a Taco Bell run was made. I did not partake of the feast as I had already snacked on some food. I know Nick enjoyed his Doritos Locos though!
We started upping the boost and realized that the AMS-500 boost controller was having a difficult time producing the amount of boost programmed into it. After talking about it with Nick, I may look into a CO2 setup to apply constant pressure to the wastegate. It will help the boost control and spooling as well. We were able to get about 14 lbs of boost on the next few dyno pulls. We changed out the plugs for a fresh set and continued with the tuning. There was a large amount of white smoke on deceleration after each pull. There is a very good chance I did a number on the rings when I started the car a few months ago and washed the cylinder walls down with fuel. The fact that I was running 10w-30 oil didn't help either. I'm switching to 20w-50 based on Kris' recommendation to see if the smoking improves.
At 14lbs of boost, the car made 665hp @ 5900 and 633ft-lb @ 5200. The plan was to get the car into the 18-20ish range and up the timing some more in addition to spinning the engine a little higher. Unfortunately, my car had other plans. Specifically, my fuel pump. It just decided that it no longer wanted to work anymore. Kept blowing fuses as soon as the ignition was turned on. We disconnected the pump and gave it power directly from the battery, and it just wouldn't turn on. I'm suspecting an internal short. The positive lead had continuity to ground.
You can't dyno a car without a fuel pump, so our day was done. I think we all felt a bit defeated. I know Kris wanted to get the car fully tuned as much as I did. It could have been a lot worse though. A lot could go wrong with a car built from scratch, but she held together. There's nothing you can do about part failures. We pushed the car off the rollers and pulled it onto the trailer with an electric winch.
Here's the video from the last pull.
View: http://youtu.be/hbIKbzHFqxQ
I'll be calling Fuelab tomorrow about the pump as well as fixing some of the other little quirks that popped up during the day yesterday. Hopefully I'll be able to get some final numbers soon. I still consider yesterday a success. She's well on her way.
I got to the shop at 10am. We got the car off the trailer and started tinkering with the ignition to get the timing where it needed to be to fire up. The FAST distributor made that quite a challenge. The car had fuel and spark, but it just wouldn't fire. After about 2 hours, we were able to get the distributor cam sync where it needed to be to fire up. I was a bit of a nervous wreck when it wasn't starting. Had I not already started it myself in the garage when I had the stock computer, I would have thought that something internally was screwed up. When it did fire up, my heart found its way back out of my throat and the pigment came back to skin.
The guys got the car setup on the rollers and the fan and water pump were no longer working. They are controlled by a DCC controller. The 30A fuse to the controller was blown. It was an oversight on my part that when both the fan and water pump reach their max speed, they pull more than 30A of current collectively. We wired the fan directly to the batter via a high-current switch and just toggled it manually. I'm going to re-think how I have the controller wired to allow me to use a larger fuse safely.
Once that was taken care of, it was time to get the car tuned.
Kris pecked away at the mouse pad on the laptop for a while until he got where it needed to be to make a first pull. 385hp @ 4550 and 455ft-lb torque @ 4200. That was at 5 lbs of boost. I could see that there was loads of potential in those numbers.
I was time for lunch, so a Taco Bell run was made. I did not partake of the feast as I had already snacked on some food. I know Nick enjoyed his Doritos Locos though!
We started upping the boost and realized that the AMS-500 boost controller was having a difficult time producing the amount of boost programmed into it. After talking about it with Nick, I may look into a CO2 setup to apply constant pressure to the wastegate. It will help the boost control and spooling as well. We were able to get about 14 lbs of boost on the next few dyno pulls. We changed out the plugs for a fresh set and continued with the tuning. There was a large amount of white smoke on deceleration after each pull. There is a very good chance I did a number on the rings when I started the car a few months ago and washed the cylinder walls down with fuel. The fact that I was running 10w-30 oil didn't help either. I'm switching to 20w-50 based on Kris' recommendation to see if the smoking improves.
At 14lbs of boost, the car made 665hp @ 5900 and 633ft-lb @ 5200. The plan was to get the car into the 18-20ish range and up the timing some more in addition to spinning the engine a little higher. Unfortunately, my car had other plans. Specifically, my fuel pump. It just decided that it no longer wanted to work anymore. Kept blowing fuses as soon as the ignition was turned on. We disconnected the pump and gave it power directly from the battery, and it just wouldn't turn on. I'm suspecting an internal short. The positive lead had continuity to ground.
You can't dyno a car without a fuel pump, so our day was done. I think we all felt a bit defeated. I know Kris wanted to get the car fully tuned as much as I did. It could have been a lot worse though. A lot could go wrong with a car built from scratch, but she held together. There's nothing you can do about part failures. We pushed the car off the rollers and pulled it onto the trailer with an electric winch.
Here's the video from the last pull.
View: http://youtu.be/hbIKbzHFqxQ
I'll be calling Fuelab tomorrow about the pump as well as fixing some of the other little quirks that popped up during the day yesterday. Hopefully I'll be able to get some final numbers soon. I still consider yesterday a success. She's well on her way.
Car sounds great! Sorry about the issues, but it's to be expected when you're starting from scratch like this. That white smoke is kinda concerning though, hopefully it's not serious.
I would consider yesterday a success! Starting a brand new build for the first time always reveals a few small issues. Fortunately they all should be easy fixes. A little more fine tuning and you should be all set to stop the show and/or take that long ride to work!
I thought washing down the cylinders was old carb stuff, like not possible with EFI
Keep at it Scott you are so close now!
Keep at it Scott you are so close now!
When you are adding 20% fuel to 95lb injectors at idle because you forgot about a coolant temp table from a previous tune, its definitely possible to pour unnecessary amounts of fuel into a cylinder. Live and learn. Worse case is that the engine comes out this winter to get the cylinders honed and new rings installed. Not something I wanted to do to a brand new engine, but that's hot rodding sometimes!
It was definitely a long day but also normal with any project considering the small problems that arose even with the amount of wiring and electronics, etc.. you have put on the car you should feel very proud of your work. I would consider putting the fans on a separate relay and fuse and letting the dfi control them with a seperate toggle wired in to run it manually also. I know you said the motor got washed down pretty bad when you first started it up after installing it with the old pms, and the smoke from the breather from the first time we even fired it did make me a little nervous also. The rings seemed to seat a bit better and the breather wasnt as bad after a couple run cycles through the rpms but it is something to keep an eye on I would switch to 20/50w either way though. The graphite head gaskets also would be something i would consider swapping out to MLS if you are willing to do the work before coming back it would def. be better with boost above 15lbs. The fan/water pump setup seemed to work great when running which is good, temps would stay right at 165-175 even when we were cruising or idling for 15-20 mins at a time with only the shop fan blowing air across the rad. You have a beautiful project engineered superbly you should give yourself a pat on the back im looking forward to getting it back on the rollers and putting another couple hundred horse to her! Thanks for coming down and hanging out hope you enjoyed the regular in n out crew too throughout the day
flstang65
10 Year Member
Scott did you fab your own headers to allow the turbo to sit like it does or did you find someone who made the headers like that already?
The turbo kit is made by HP Performance, no longer in business. I modified 80% of it to work for me. All that is detailed way back on page 3 and page 9.
Well,..that all looks mega cool to me. I love a turbo car on the rollers when it starts to honk. (Seems like it wants to climb straight up in the air).
The smoke on decell would weigh on me though, hopefully, you find that its not a ring thing. I guess even if it is though worse things could've happened. At least that's a mechanical fix that really is only about a week of extra time out.
I wish that All out Auto was close to me when the time comes as well, but I think that I have a good guy in Reed at Work turbo to help me through the same hurdles you went through yesterday.
Probably be about one year from now though.
Car looks great!
The smoke on decell would weigh on me though, hopefully, you find that its not a ring thing. I guess even if it is though worse things could've happened. At least that's a mechanical fix that really is only about a week of extra time out.
I wish that All out Auto was close to me when the time comes as well, but I think that I have a good guy in Reed at Work turbo to help me through the same hurdles you went through yesterday.
Probably be about one year from now though.
Car looks great!
Thanks Mike. The car was quite exciting to watch as it kept spinning. It sounded very strong. Coming from a high-horsepower stock block setup previously, it was comforting to know that the Dart block wasn't going to come apart on me. I used to cringe every time I romped on my old setup.
I called Fuelab and they gave me an RMA to send the pump back. He said it sounds like a microprocessor failure being that there is a dead short across the power terminals. It's repairable. We didn't talk costs, but it will surely be less than a new pump. I'm 3 months out of the 2 year warranty. I explained how I bought the pump early to mock it up as part of a resto project, so we'll see what they do. I'm sure a pump this sophisticated has the ability to log running hours. They may be able to see it has just a few hours of use, if that. We'll see.
Kris also mentioned the possibility of the turbo drain not flowing enough and causing smoke on decel. I have a 10an drain, so I may up it to 12an. I also have the turbo clocked at about 10 degrees. I'm going to see if I can change one of the water fittings to allow me to have the drain in a more vertical position. The problem was that the fitting would hit the turbo flange if I clocked it less than where it is.
I spoke with Comp on the phone, and he said the car would smoke at idle if the drain wasn't doing its job. I don't remember seeing any smoke at idle, but it won't hurt to get it to drain a little better. That will probably be even more important with going to the heavier weight oil.
I called Fuelab and they gave me an RMA to send the pump back. He said it sounds like a microprocessor failure being that there is a dead short across the power terminals. It's repairable. We didn't talk costs, but it will surely be less than a new pump. I'm 3 months out of the 2 year warranty. I explained how I bought the pump early to mock it up as part of a resto project, so we'll see what they do. I'm sure a pump this sophisticated has the ability to log running hours. They may be able to see it has just a few hours of use, if that. We'll see.
Kris also mentioned the possibility of the turbo drain not flowing enough and causing smoke on decel. I have a 10an drain, so I may up it to 12an. I also have the turbo clocked at about 10 degrees. I'm going to see if I can change one of the water fittings to allow me to have the drain in a more vertical position. The problem was that the fitting would hit the turbo flange if I clocked it less than where it is.
I spoke with Comp on the phone, and he said the car would smoke at idle if the drain wasn't doing its job. I don't remember seeing any smoke at idle, but it won't hurt to get it to drain a little better. That will probably be even more important with going to the heavier weight oil.
I had drain issues on my car, until I went to -12 and straight up inlet and straight down return.
That makes a lot more sense to me.
Best of luck in getting it resolved, with the motor staying in the car!
That makes a lot more sense to me.
Best of luck in getting it resolved, with the motor staying in the car!
Thanks guys.
The pump is on its way back to Fuelab. Anxiously waiting for their call. The turnaround time for repairs is pretty quick from them based on what people from other forums have said.
I'm also re-feeding the DCController from its own fused source off the battery post, instead of going through my fuse panel. Shouldn't be any more fuse popping when the fan and water pump are on high. I'm also swapping out the 10w-30 for 20w-50. The turbo is also going to get re-clocked closer to zero so it drains better. I should have her ready to go as soon as the pump comes back.
The pump is on its way back to Fuelab. Anxiously waiting for their call. The turnaround time for repairs is pretty quick from them based on what people from other forums have said.
I'm also re-feeding the DCController from its own fused source off the battery post, instead of going through my fuse panel. Shouldn't be any more fuse popping when the fan and water pump are on high. I'm also swapping out the 10w-30 for 20w-50. The turbo is also going to get re-clocked closer to zero so it drains better. I should have her ready to go as soon as the pump comes back.
